


The Clone Zone: Walking Distance

by crowleyshouseplant



Series: The Clone Zone [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 09:23:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: A trooper travels back in time to his childhood.





	The Clone Zone: Walking Distance

Cody was on Kamino. It wasn't leave, like the officers had leave. But it was a respite. The halls were smooth and long and curved around him. It was so sterile and clean. It was the first thing he had ever known, but it probably would not be the last thing he would see because, as the Jedi would say, that was not his destiny. 

The bad batches stayed here, somewhere. The unwanted ones died here. Or the ones too unfortunate to die a swift death. They lingered, here. Master Shaak Ti would sit with them, holding their hands in her own. Did it bother her that she sent people to the front lines, but never went herself? It would bother him. Never ask someone something you wouldn't do yourself. 

But the clones loved her. In truth, he loved her too. She valued the life of a clone. 

It tugged and poked at him as he wandered the halls, his blaster by his side. If she valued the life of a clone, would she keep sending them to the front lines? Would she make those decisions about the batches that came out wrong, that would be no good for soldiers? He shuddered to think what happened to them. 

Who had said it first, that she valued the life of a clone? A trooper said it. Another said it there. They muttered like prayer if they felt the other Jedi Generals saw them more like fodder than like soldiers. Technically, Cody knew, they were soldiers meant to feed the machine of war, which technically made them fodder. There were so many of them here on Kamino. Rows upon rows of them ate in the mess hall. Children marched the corridors in perfect time. So many in one place. They could probably do anything if the enemy attacked. They could probably do anything if--

 _Master Shaak Ti values the life of a clone_.

His head fuzzed with exhaustion, and he shook himself hard to clear it. They weren't droids, he knew, but he shouldn't be tired. He was due to meet General Kenobi so they could go over a report or some other. He figured Kenobi valued the life of a clone about the same as his own--which wasn't much. Of course, the clones were not taught to wield the power of the Force, had been told they were not sensitive to it, so they didn't have that going for them like Kenobi did. But he listened to the Jedi when they spoke to each other, when they thought he was too busy cleaning his gun. The Force was in all living things, and was he not a living thing? He looked down at his hands as if he expected them to spark into something electric. But they didn't. They were just his palms, rough with callouses.

The halls seemed to stretch forever, as if they had grown twice as long. He forced himself to pick up his feet, double quick. He rounded a corner and nearly ran head first into Kenobi. 

"Oh my," Kenobi said, smoothing both his Jedi robes and the look on his face into something austere and apart. 

"Sir." 

Kenobi crossed his arms, staring at him so intently Cody wondered if he'd done something. Or maybe It had finally happened: Kenobi failed to recognize his clone face out of all the other clone faces. "You must be ah--one of the clones." Kenobi cleared his throat and stroked his beard. "I don't suppose you could tell me more about that experience? Perhaps more about your donor?" His hands clasped, and he had what appeared to be a struggling sort of smile.

Cody tilted his head. There was something wrong. For a moment, Kenobi had been surprised. In fact, he had a bit of a skulk about him, as if he was somewhere he didn't belong. But the Jedi were welcome here. And his donor? Kenobi knew more than anyone that Jango Fett had been beheaded in the arena and that everything there was to know about him was in the system. He hadn't made the final blow himself, but he had been there. They had all seen. The clones had whispered about what had happened to the son whose DNA had not been manipulated, who was not forced to fight and march. He does not matter, the Jedi said, waving their hands.

Wait--

"Did you hear me?" Kenobi said. 

"Sir," Cody said again. "We're not told anything about the others."

Kenobi nodded, like that made sense. It was because Cody had already told him that when Kenobi had brought it up some time after the events in the arena. Whatever the General had wanted from him when he had first mentioned Jango Fett, he hadn't gotten it from Cody. Would Cody have liked to know more about the donor of the DNA that made him. Sure. But also, who cared? He didn't know his "father" just as Kenobi did not know or remember his--as none of the Jedi did. They were alike in this. 

"I don't suppose you could--"

For the first time, Cody interrupted Kenobi. He shouldn't admit it, but it felt good. "Do you know me, sir?"

Kenobi spread his hands. "I'm sorry. I just came from the demonstration. I don't think I've ever seen so many clones in one place before. It was quite astounding." He said it like someone trying to figure out how he was going to explain something like them to the Jedi Council. Cody could only imagine the difficulties. 

"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me the date," Cody said. "I think I'm from a bad batch. A bit addled." He crossed his eyes at Kenobi's dumbfounded glance.

But Kenobi, ever one for attempting to maintain some kind of decorum, gave him the date. Cody had always needed to school his face, so it was not difficult not to react to the fact that Kenobi did not know him simply because they had not met yet. Unless this was some elaborate prank, which Cody did not think it was now that he looked at his surrounding with new eyes. The intercom announcing traffic and news, that he mostly tuned out once he had heard the full loop, was using a voice version quite dated. The droids that cleaned the floors were also not of a current model. 

"Thank you, sir." 

"Well, good day," Kenobi said before he shuffled off awkwardly on his spy mission, making it up as he went along. Kenobi had once told him (after indulging in a little warm drink), the very last thing he had expected to find was them, that he had had no idea what he was doing, that he was just trusting the Force not to say something that would make anybody suspicious.

Cody continued walking, his way splitting from Kenobi's, hands clasped behind his back. How had this happened? Maybe it was the Force. It made sense for the Force to be outside the constraints of time. But why now? He laughed. Might as well ask why he was still alive today when so many of his men weren't. Things happened. There weren't no reason for why things happened most times. They just did. So he'd ride this one out, like he'd done every other mission he'd been assigned to.

He paused though, when a young face leaned around the corner, like he, too, was doing something he shouldn't be doing, and was certain he had been caught. "Aren't you out of bounds?"

Their eyes met. Clone he may be, but he would be a fool not to know his own self, even if his own self was years his junior and had not seen what had seen, and did not bear it on his shoulders. "I was following the man with a cape. He's new."

That's right. He would have been something that had not been meticulously planned for them. "Don't go after him."

His young self raised his eyes upward. "But...he must have a ship! And if he has a ship, I can stow away and not be here."

Maybe he was from a bad batch. Maybe the conditioning hadn't taken him so well. Maybe that was why everything was such a haze. Slowly, the memory of this night pried itself from a thick fog, still hazy on the edges. "He won't save you." 

The boy stamped his foot. "You don't know that."

"He delivers us to the Republic."

"But isn't that good?"

Even on Kamino, the boy had heard of the Republic. Cody put his hands on his shoulder as they began walking. He walked slower to match the boy's pace. "It should have been good," Cody said. "But they send us to war because that's what we were made for." He wondered if the war would ever end. He did not think it would--too many stood to profit. That much he had gleaned from Kenobi after one of the frustrating sessions with the Senate. 

He watched while the boy put himself in his bunk. "Listen and watch--but don't let them know." Cody put his finger to his lips. "They can make people disappear if they catch you." 

Fear filled the boy's eyes. He had already seen clones disappear--the bad batches, they were claimed to be. 

"One day, our chance will will come," he said, because he had to believe it was true. 

He left himself behind, walking down hallways slowly changing. There was Yoda, fetching the first troops to save the arena. Many troopers died that day--but then, so had many Jedi. He brushed past Master Mace Windu, who could not look Cody in the eye. 

And there was Master Shaak Ti, arriving with a wounded battalion for her long stay on Kamino. One of the clones, battle-shocked he was, jerked away from her as if she had gone for her saber. He shouted and raved that the Jedi didn't care, that the Republic didn't care, that they were nothing but men waiting for death, and shouldn't they do something. She reached for him, one hand holding one of his while the other wiped the tears from his face, finger fluttering against his cheeks. "Don't be afraid, Trooper. I am Master Shaak Ti, and Master Shaak Ti values the life of a clone." 

Cody watched as a calmness settled over the man. His eyes dimmed and went clear. His hands dropped, fingers sliding through Shaak Ti's. "Master Shaak Ti values the life of a clone," he repeated dutifully.

Though Cody only saw Shaak Ti in profile, he imagined how wide her smile must be. "That's what they say."

Something cold and still gripped him in the middle, that place just above his naval that went tight on the eve of battle. He went away, continued walking that hall until he came upon the back of a trooper bearing the yellow pauldrons that were his and his alone. With a small sigh, he went through the man that was him in the present and became him. There was only the report that that Kenobi yet waited for on his mind, and when he found him, Kenobi knew him by name. Shaak Ti was also there, her hands folded in her cloak, hiding them from sight. "Good morning, Cody." She smiled at him.

"Oh, yes, good morning--my apologies," Kenobi said. "Mustn't forget the pleasantries in our pursuit of the enemy. Now what do you think--"

They drifted so he could fall in place between them. Maybe everything was alright. Maybe Kenobi really did know him, and maybe Shaak Ti really did value the life of a clone. The boy who had longed to escape fell away as they strategized against the Separatists and their clankers. Everything was normal, and everything was fine.


End file.
